Litecoin Founder Charlie Lee Appears to Regret Selling His Stake

Oops.

Oh dear. Charlie Lee, the founder of the Litecoin cryptocurrency, told TenX co-founder Julian Hosp in a Friday interview that he has some questions about whether his decision to sell his Litecoin holdings on December 20 — which he did to avoid “conflict of interest” as he continued to steer its development over Twitter — was definitely the right move at the time.

“I still think it was the right move but I question whether…I think in the long run it was the right move, but in the short term while the price is down, below the all-time high, it just feels like it’s not the right decision,” Lee said, referring to its $151.87 price that’s a fraction of the all-time high of $375.29 it reached in December. “But I think like, moving forward, five years down the road, when the price is back to the all-time high, then I would feel like it will be the right move.”

Litecoin's price over the past three months.

While Lee has some questions about his decision, he appears to remain committed to his vision of Litecoin acting as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. Lee said that “because of Bitcoin is focused on being the most decentralized and censorship-resistant, I always thought the fees would go up […] Litecoin could play a role where it’s cheaper to use but also I guess a little bit more centralized and a bit less security.”

Lee also dismissed Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of Bitcoin that occurred in August 2017 and now ranks as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, as “attacking Bitcoin’s brand.” While it may seem like Lee is attacking a larger project — Litecoin has a market cap of $8.6 billion compared to Bitcoin Cash’s $24.2 billion — Lee has spoken before about a similar fork called Litecoin Cash, both of which he claims are “scams trying to confuse users into thinking they are Litecoin.”

Both Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin make changes that are intended to speed up transactions. Bitcoin Cash could see a boost from a hard fork due on May 15, intended to change the cryptocurrency’s block size again to process more data at once.